How early is too early to put up your Christmas lights?

Your spouse is moody. Your energy bill is high. And Jim next door gave you another look on your way to the mailbox.

The homes on Seattle’s famous “Candy Cane Lane” won’t light until Dec. 13, though some residents have already lined their homes with bulbs. (Mónica Guzmán/Seattle P-I)

Uh-oh. Did you put up your Christmas lights too early again?

No law or policy dictates how soon is too soon to border your home with twinkly, colorful bulbs for the holidays, but when you think about it, there does seem to be a consensus.

The question is, what? And does it matter if you break it?

I knocked on some doors on Park Road Northeast, a.k.a. “Candy Cane Lane,” today to get the opinion of someone who lives on one of Seattle’s brightest holiday streets.

Turns out the residents, who light their famous displays on the same day every year, voted to get things started on Saturday, Dec. 13 — one week later than last year. Resident Heidi Gross thinks that’s too late. What would be too early?

“Thanksgiving,” she said. “I don’t think I’d have a problem with the lights. I’d have a problem with having to think about Christmas.”

Scott Thomsen, spokesman for Seattle City Light, agrees. “Maybe I’m stuck in the 20th century, but when did the day after Thanksgiving shift to the day after Halloween?” he wrote in a 2007 post for green blog Ecometro. “I was surprised to see my neighbors’ house lit up with bright red Christmas lights Nov. 1.”

So do we all agree on Thanksgiving as the cutoff? A tree-shape light fixture appeared on the Space Needle in the days after the holiday. So did the lights on the city’s biggest holiday tree at Westlake Center.

“No,” said the woman who lives in the first house to greet visitors to Candy Cane Lane. “A month ahead is too early.”

What do you think?

P.S. — Weather might also factor into people’s timing, Thomsen told me over the phone earlier this week. We don’t get many sunny weekends in December, and it’s no fun to install lights in the rain. He hopes people consider something else, too — energy costs. For the second year in a row, energy-saving LED lights cover the Westlake Center holiday tree. The lights are 90 percent more efficient and 20 times more durable than traditional incandescent bulbs, he said.

What Seattle myths and etiquette should we tackle next? Send us an e-mail, or suggest them in the comments.